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You are late,’ Shaw’s father growled, slouched over their sole table, making an empty jug roll back and forth. ‘You know that you are not supposed to be late.’
Shaw halted in the doorway and watched his father stumble towards him.
He did not run.
‘Why are you looking at me like that?’ His father said and knelt before him. ‘I’m not going to hurt you. I’ve done enough hurting. The gods know it.’ He clutched a swirling symbol of threaded gold with trembling fingers.
‘They call you a liar, father. Did you know that? They say you lie. Say you are a coward.’
‘Who? Who says that, Shaw?’
‘The other boys.’
‘They can call me what—’
‘I told them that you are not a coward! I told them that you fought in battles, hundreds, hundreds, father! Hundreds…’ Shaw could see that his father noticed the bruises on his arms and legs.
‘I’m sorry, Shaw,’ his father whispered, and Shaw could feel the liquor in his breath. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be, father,’ Shaw said, his lips curling up to a smile. ‘I taught them not to lie, father. I fought them, like a soldier, father, like a soldier!’ He beamed with pride when he retold his actions in defending his father’s honour.
But his father didn’t seem to share his excitement, he could see something change in his expression, he almost looked sad, but he couldn’t understand why? Father was never sad, except when he slept; he cried in his sleep. Shaw had always wondered why his father had sad dreams.
‘You hurt them? Those boys?’
‘Father?’ Shaw said, confused.
He saw something change in his father’s expression. The devils burned hot and furious.
‘You used violence, for a trivial thing as my honour.’ His father growled.
‘Father, I—’
‘Stay.’
His father stumbled into the blackness.
‘Charles!’ Shaw could hear his mother’s scream in the dark. Worried. Afraid.
‘Silence!’ The were a crack, wood hitting flesh, then his father stumbled back from the dark with a long crude stick in his hand.
Shaw’s body wanted to run. But he didn’t. Soldiers didn’t run.
‘You remember my sermons?’
‘Stop it, Charles!’ His mother cried, screamed.
‘Shut it!’
‘S-some,’ Shaw stuttered.
‘What is the worst of all sins?’
‘I…I…’
‘Answer!’
‘Charles!’
‘Lying? I don’t know!’ Shaw threw out, he could think, he felt tears running from his eyes.
His father hit him across the face and Shaw collapsed to the floor, his ears ringing, his mother screaming, and taste of blood grew in his mouth.
‘There is no greater sin than violence!’ His father roared his sermon, hitting him again. ‘Vile are they who take pride in the ruin of what the gods’ created.’ His voice broke on the word and the stick cracked against Shaw’s little body.
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‘Stop it, Charles! Please! Please stop!’
’Borrowed is their time! Lost on a bet for a little more!’ The stick snapped and cracked against his skin, his body contorting against his own volition. ‘They shall burn when maggots feast on their flesh!’
Shaw screamed and cried. Begging him to stop. He wanted his father to love him. Love him. But his father took that love, threw it away. Hate was all that was left. Hate was all he could do.
Hate…
*
Shaw threw out the last of John’s intestines on the flagstones. There is no greater sin than violence. But hypocrisy is loathed above all. He hauled down John until the fairytale prince’s pale body lay on the cold flagstones of the chapel. There is a difference between the man who kills willingly and the man who condemns him and yet brandishes the knife.
He heard the boy shuffling up to him, mumbling something.
‘Speak up, Boy. Or don’t speak at all.’
‘Won’t you anger them?’
‘Who?’
‘The Gods.’ He gazed towards their stone statues splayed in their thorny cages.
‘Why would I fear them?’
‘The priests say—’
‘The priests? The priests speak nought by lies. They feed on your fears. I knew a man who ate human flesh. He wasn’t desperate like us. He thought the flesh of another man would give him his strength. And if the Gods cared, lighting would have done him dead. Instead, he ate human flesh for fifteen years, until one too many defeats made his company turn on him. He was killed by one of his own not the gods.’ Shaw spat. ‘So, no need to fear them.’
The boy nodded.
‘Good, and Boy?’
‘Yes?’
‘Don’t mention any of this,’ Shaw said.
The boy nodded, eyes refusing to look at the cadaver.
‘Because men have a habit of mistaking the moral thing to do for the right thing. Humans are not beholden above other animals. Their flesh is not sacred. To kill a deer and refuse its flesh would be a waste. But to men the sight of this—’ Shaw gestured to John’s flayed body ‘—would drive them to disgust and violence. They don’t understand the gift we have given them, so it’s better to keep your mouth shut. Do you understand?’
The boy nodded again.
‘Good, because these men won’t wait fifteen years to kill you, nor your master. They will gut you on the cold stones of the common hall without a trial.’
*
The keep rose stark and black, an ancient structure that had survived worse storms than this one. That last post of civilisation, a shelter for the madmen who guarded it against the unknowns of the wasteland that was the northern frontier. It was their home, their prison, and it’s light shun to guide them there.
‘Not far now!’ Shaw shouted, felt his throat turn to ice and saw that the boy was struggling against the storm more than him.
‘Fight it, boy!’ Shaw said, but he was unsure whether the boy heard a word. For he could hardly hear himself.
Lashing snow carved away the warm from his exposed flesh, it shouted in his ears, and the sled with John’s body made the distance to the kitchen twice as long. If I survive this I will desert, find the warmth in the south. If they hang me, well, I will never feel cold again.
*
When they reached the kitchen door, he threw himself at it, until it opened, and he fell inside.
The warmth of the kitchen washed over him, there was no better feeling.
The Cook sat hunched near the hearth peeling potatoes with shadows all around him. Two serpent tattoos, black in their appearance, slithered up both his arms. Shaw thought he saw them move in the firelight.
The Cook meticulously peeled the potatoes using deft hands that Shaw knew were not ignorant of the arts of cutting human flesh.
‘Master!’ The boy called out and Cook snapped his head towards the boy and his eyes melted in the sight of him.
Cook rose from the stool he sat on, scrubbing his hands against his apron, and gave the boy a smile. It was a hideous smile, but Shaw couldn’t deny that it was one.
Shaw watched Cook fish out a tiny wood carved solider from his apron pocket, but in the process his eyes met Shaw’s and they hardened into cold iron.
Cook grunted to his apprentice and shoved a finger towards Shaw.
‘If you can’t stand my presence, know that I won’t stay long,’ Shaw said with a grin and ambled into the kitchen. ‘I’m looking for your help. I know a little of your past, what you did before you came here.’ He eyed the cleaver lodged into a table near the hearth. ‘I have a ripe cadaver outside.’
Cook’s eyes narrowed becoming sharp points that carved into him, dissecting him. Shaw saw how his fingers twitched, his quick glances towards the cleaver.
‘I’ve already dressed him myself; you just have to cut and cook him. Nothing that you haven’t done before.’ Shaw lay his right arm around the boy’s shoulders. ‘Your apprentice has already been a great help.’
The Boy nodded.
‘Nothing worse than you have done before,’ Shaw said.
Cook scoffed. He looked towards the boy then shifted towards Shaw. Shaw could see that he stood at a crossroad, weighing everything quietly for himself.
‘Nothing worse.’
In the end Cook grunted, spit on the palm of his right hand, and held it out.
Shaw spit in the palm of his own right hand but Cook pulled it away his own before he could shake it.
Shaw grinned anyway. ‘Don’t worry, friend. I will take care of the bones. This will all be our little secret.’